[Bug-gsl] [bug #49988] Allocation of zero-length blocks, vectors, matrices

[Roy Stogner]

URL:
  <http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?49988>

                 Summary: Allocation of zero-length blocks, vectors, matrices
                 Project: GNU Scientific Library
            Submitted by: roystgnr
            Submitted on: Thu 05 Jan 2017 03:54:06 PM GMT
                Category: Documentation
                Severity: 3 - Normal
        Operating System: 
                  Status: None
             Assigned to: None
             Open/Closed: Open
                 Release: 
         Discussion Lock: Any

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Details:

In the documentation for allocation functions at
https://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/manual/html_node/Block-allocation.html#Block-allocation
and
https://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/manual/html_node/Vector-allocation.html#Vector-allocation
and
https://www.gnu.org/software/gsl/manual/html_node/Matrix-allocation.html#Matrix-allocation

the gsl_*_alloc() functions are described as intended to "follow the style of
malloc and free", however there is an important distinction in behavior:
malloc handles the "if size is 0" case by returning a NULL or a free()able
pointer value; gsl_*_alloc throws a "block length n must be positive integer"
exception in init_source.c

I would prefer to fix this by adding support for zero-length objects, which
would then obviate the need for special-case code in some of my higher-level
algorithms; however I don't know how intrusive that support would need to be
or whether others would agree with my preference, so I'm marking this as a
"Documentation" bug - a quick resolution would be to simply mention the "n >
0" requirement in the manual.




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